In the Realm of Poverty

By Ivelina Darvenyashka

Obama’s presidency has brought a lot of hope for a sustainable and bright future in African countries. It is unquestionable how many the expectations that African population have for Obama for the next couple of years are. A part of those expectations are results of Obama’s African origins and previous exposures to the culture, the lifestyle and the grounded problems in the nation. Poverty stays as one of the major political issues that Obama has to face in all the countries in Africa. Because of his experience with poverty when he was a kid in Indonesia, the expectations of the African population that Barack Obama will be able to fight successfully with the widespread poverty are even higher.
On his official website, Obama brings some of the major points on the agenda of the US towards foreign policy, including poverty directed policies in Africa. His primal goal is to cut poverty around the world in half by 2015. Even though this political decision may bring hope to the third world countries, can we trust Obama that this will really happen? The plans for “curing” poverty in Africa and other countries around the globe do not oscillate a lot from the plans of the Clinton administration. If the past US-Africa policy did not bring the desired results towards the global fight with poverty, can we believe that Obama’s support towards Africa will come not only because of his African American origin, but also because of his diplomatic skills and humanitarian nature?
Unfortunately, there are some striking facts concerning US involvement in global poverty acts. First, the US contributes only a slight amount of money of its Gross National Input to the Official Development Assistance. Second, the reality shows that among the international – oriented areas that are of major concern for the US administration, Africa holds a minor position.
However, Africans should stay optimistic about Obama as he is still the major figure in the Global Poverty Act. Moreover, Obama is with no doubt a charismatic person who brings hope to people all over the world. He believes in justice and equality regardless of the skin color and therefore, he might be the one who can find the “cure” for the poverty around African countries. The question that we are left with is whether Obama will be more driven by his origin or by the American interests with concern to the bright economically stable future of the African population.